Quote:
My hen that was chewed last saturday seemes to be doing fine. I gave her a bath, blow dried her and put neosporin on all the punctures that I was able to find. They were difficult to spot because she is so fluffy. For the first 24 hours, I kept her by herself in a crate, and she sat most of the time. Each day I would let her out with the other hens, first 1/2 hour, then an hour, more and more. I did not want her to lose her position as queen of the hea house - she is such a sweet hen. Unfortunately, the BCM is now queen, but all the other hens still respect her and don't give her a hard time. The first few days she moved very slowly and could not hop up on things. even things only 5" high. She moved slow and stiff. Each day she got better and better. First 2 days she had runny poo, but that is back to normal now. The first couple of days it looked like her comb was losing color and starting to droop just slightly, but it looks fine now. When I was cleaning the coop yesterday, she flew up to the top roosting bar, so I let her spend the night with the big girls. Today she was moving and behaving perfectly normal, hopping up on everything, eating and drinking just fine (always ate and drank fine, but she'd scratching for her own earthworms today). She looks a little rough with so many missing feathers, especially on her wings, tail and back. Poor henny. Tonight when she was on the roosting bar, her crop looked HUGE, so I felt it and it is hard as a rock. I think I may take her to the vet tomorrow if it is still like that in the morning. She behaves normally, her energy level is normal, but that lump can't be good.
I sure hope your hen recovers, poor thing. The neighbor dogs came in twice this week and chased my girls around, but my dog did this. The dogs and hens had been out together for 3 days, then this happened in the evening.
When Roz was injured, I let her out with the other girls every day because she ate better if she was not alone. I put her out in a dog crate for the first week, so the others couldn't injure her. At the end of a week, I let her out of the crate with the others.
